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1

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 29, 2013, 10:55:57 pm »

Tut,

just an update. I have managed to buy a preferente ticket for 6th Aug from Barcelona Sants to Figueres Vilafant. So the only bit I am now missing is my ticket from Figueres Vilafant to Barcelona. Which is a bit odd as normally the earlier train tickets are available first. I have no idea why they haven't released tickets for this journey during July.

I note also that the child ticket was more expensive than the adult ticket! They clearly need to think about their ticketing.

2

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 23, 2013, 11:12:37 pm »

Tut,

well now I see that they have now released tickets for the train that I want up to the end of June. I can only guess that they are not being very organised.

What a contrast with SNCF, Eurostar and even UK trains! I don't know if anyone from RENFE comes to this site to have a read, but if so, your ticketing can be improved!

3

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 21, 2013, 05:33:12 pm »

Hello Tut,

I have now booked my tickets between Paris and Figueres Vilafant thanks to some good advice from you.

I am now stumped on this. If I look for tickets for the 19:55 from Figueres to Barcelona, I cannot see anything other than Turista tickets on sale after 28th May.

I am not sure I understand this. As I understand it, the train from Figueres at that time must be an AVE100 given that it takes only an hour to get to Barcelona? In which case, why are they only selling tickets for a single class?

I tried writing to RENFE, but they just said that tickets for certain trains might not be available yet. Well that makes no sense, as the train itself is clearly listed, but they arent issuing different classes of ticket. Does that mean I can buy a turista and just go and sit where I like?

Well done to SNCF by the way, they seem pretty switched on with their ticketing.

4

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 16, 2013, 12:33:28 am »

Tut,

I had a look online today on the SNCF website.

I see that on the date I want to travel, there are no tickets available Paris - Barcelona on the 14:07 train.

However, on what must be the same train, there are tickets for Paris - Figueres now on sale. Should I buy one?

I had a look on the RENFE website. They don't have any tickets on sale for Figueres - Barcelona just yet.

If I go ahead and buy tickets from Paris - Figueres, I get my ticket on the place I want on the train. But I will need a ticket for the remainder of the journey. What will happen if they decide to introduce the straight through train to Barcelona in the time between now and when I make my journey, what would I do?

And if I hold off of buying, will it mean I might not be able to get the place on the train that I want, or the best price tickets might disappear. How do I decide what to do?

Thanks.

5

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 11, 2013, 05:51:28 pm »

Tut,

I have spent some further time looking at how ticketing for this journey works. I sometimes get the 'technical error', and sometimes not. For example, trying to book 2 tickets for 9th July on the 14:07. It doesn't give me an error when I try and book for the 198 euros tickets, but does for the 226 euros one, which I presume is the option for preferente class Figueres to Barcelona. I guess that means there must be some sort of system error when trying to book that part of the journey which causes the whole attempt to book tickets to fail.

One of the things I do find frustrating is that ideally I would like to book a dual face to face pair of seats on the upper deck. It appears that you can only book upper deck, or dual face to face, but not both, so it may offer you side by side in the upper deck, or dual face to face in the lower deck, there appears to be no control on what is offered to you. That is a bit of a pity. I know that with the Eurostar site you can choose what seat you want if it hasn't been booked already.

6

Train fares and tariffs / Re: Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 06, 2013, 01:17:09 am »

tUt,

thank you so much for your reply. I have taken on board everything you say.

I am hoping that they can sort out the issue of the direct train from Paris to Barcelona, but I am preparing myself if they are not able to do this.

One thing I also note, if I try and choose a seat on the http://en.voyages-sncf.com website, I keep getting an error. I had hoped to get a seat upstairs for the view. I dont know if I will be able to make a choice here or not when the time comes to buy a ticket.

I also see on the RENFE site that they are not letting you book trains in June for Barcelona to Vilafant Figueres. I am guessing that the introduction of the 'one train' service is imminent and the really dont know when they can tell us all the information. I hope that they resolve it soon as there are people needing to make decisions.

Thanks for now.

7

Train fares and tariffs / Paris to Barcelona

« on: May 04, 2013, 07:57:11 pm »

Hello everyone.

I am trying to work out what is going on with the Paris - Barcelona train service. It looks like it wont be changing to a one train service any time soon. So in July I want to travel there and get a first class ticket for me and my daughter if I can.

So I have been looking at the http://en.voyages-sncf.com website, looking at tickets for June as a proxy for the July ones as they are now available.

Now I can see that from Paris to Figueres I can buy a first class ticket. What I dont understand though is this. For the adult that is travelling, you can get an economica class at 95 euros, but the child isnt able to buy an economica which makes their ticket quite a bit more expensive. Is that correct, or has a mistake been made? I have never heard of a child's ticket being more expensive than an adult's ticket before, ever.

If that really is the case, can I just buy an adult's ticket for the child?

Also, the second leg of the journey goes from Figueres to Barcelona. On the SNCF website there is no way in which you can choose which class of ticket to choose as far as I can see. Is that correct, or is there something else that I need to do?

Is another option to go to the RENFE site? I can see that they have some ability to choose Preferente tickets rather than Turista tickets on that site. Has anyone ever done this before or is there another thing I need to do on the SNCF site?

Many thank in advance.